Review: vwlee.com

imelgrat · #1 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 04:26 PM

Hi, there! I just finished working on a site called VW Lee.com | About Us and I'd like you guys and gals to review it.
It's a modest, simple site, aimed at attracting businesses in the contracting work in the UK. Its owners want a very simple site for the moment.
Thanks in advance to all of ya!
Iván

Dcrux · #2 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 09:14 PM

Layout is fine, but it doesn't explain the reason why those clients do business with the company. Would they ever do business with the company again? If so, I'm sure there's some reason why.

The site content reads "we’re an experienced and trusted supplier of skilled electrical personnel." If this isn't put into context with a reason why, it sounds like a boast, or the company talking to itself about itself. The reader -- the site visitor -- is merely an intrusion in the companies internal dialog. What makes the company trustworthy? They don't say. How do I know the employees have a certain level of skill? They don't say.

Really, why have a site at all if you're not going to use it. The site raises more questions than it answers, and none of them persuade the reader to bother contacting the company to get answers when the company couldn't be bothered to put basic information on the site.

A simple layout is not a problem. A website that doesn't communicate basic information is.

davebarnes · #3 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 11:16 PM

Ditch the cheap stock photos and get some custom photos.

amorphic8 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-17-2007, 06:21 AM

Stock images don't bother me much and I LOVE the accesskey navigation!!!! nice touch.

The site seems user friendly enough; I would possibly change the home page text a bit to make it more inviting; why not tell people what they can do on the site? After clicking through, it seems you have a lot to offer here; job opportunities, quotes by location... all nice features, but the home page doesn't do it justice.

Why not tell us how many people are using the site? how many people have you helped connect with a job? etc...
It may be that I am not English, but the term 'vacancies' doesn't make me think that I can register to find work there. If it is a UK colloquialism, then disregard my comment, but if not, then maybe name it something more descriptive.

I was a little surprised to see a downloads link, but when I clicked it, it made more sense. I may not have clicked it, however, if I weren't trying to review the site for you.

Technically, the doctype is XHTML 1.1 but you have a lot of deprecated markup in there that is making the site fail validation. Either update your markup or change to the appropriate doctype (XHTML 1.0 Transitional, maybe?)...

Most of the errors were outdated attributes (align = center) etc...
get rid of them and add more rules to your stylesheet to control the position of elements. You will also be able to get rid of all the non-semantic  s as well and continue to use your current doctype.

well done, I don't know much about the industry (although my father is an electrical contractor in the NY area, USA) but I think your design and coding is very close to being first class... a little tightening up and you'll be there!

CJacobson · #5 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 02:40 PM

The two things that I would change about this site are...

1) pretty much all of the text is hard to read because there's (IMHO) insufficient contrast between font-color and background-color.

2) it looks like every page of the site is using the same image of electronic components ("478933b.jpg") and that image is badly pixelated! One of the problems is that it's a 260x39 image and you're displaying it 359x60. I think an image that will be displayed so prominently should be sized correctly and also optimized to look crystal clear.

Other than that... it's a very nice, simple, tasteful site.

If I were the client (VW Lee) I'd hire someone to freshen up my logo. It looks cheap... not just because it's a too-generic design, but also because the transparent gif isn't clipped very well (so we're seeing a white edge around the yellow... yuch!)

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